He was very clear on where to dig though and laid it out exactly with string and stakes and all while me and Froggy came along behind with our shovels turning over the soil which was surprisingly free of rocks and dark and crumbly and rich-looking. It was like I-Man was following this vein of good soil, the only good soil in the whole area actually and if he’d gone and cut a regular garden plot in the field twenty or thirty feet square like a normal person nothing would’ve grown there because most of that field like most of the whole county was rocks and gravel and in lots of places was chemical waste. Definitely the field we were working and living on then was pretty much on top of old chemicals from when they stored poison and radioactive stuff out there for the air force years ago in case the Russians attacked but somehow I-Man was able to sniff out the one narrow strip of dirt that wasn’t like contaminated and dangerous or rocky even because I never saw such dark thick dirt in that part of the country and everything he planted came up and grew wicked fast and looked as healthy as food from the olden pioneer days.
It stayed light pretty late then because we were coming up on the end of June and nights after supper the three of us would sit out on the steps of the bus with the door open and me and I-Man would knock back this blunt-sized spliff and we’d talk about stuff, him doing most of the talking actually and me and Froggy just trying to understand because he was like our teacher in life and we were the students, her in the first grade or kindergarten and me maybe in the third and there’d be these long silences in between I-Man’s words of wisdom and we’d all three just sit and listen to the crickets together and the breeze rustling the long grasses and the cornstalks and all the other plants in the garden and we’d watch the sun go down and the sky turn all red like jam and these thin strips of silver clouds would float across and one by one stars would pop out of the dark blue sky overhead like genuine diamonds and then the old moon would drift up over the tops of the trees in the distance and the field in the moonlight would look so incredibly peaceful and beautiful that it was hard to believe that at one time not so very long ago I’d seen this place as spooky and kind of nasty and couldn’t hardly wait to get away. Now it was like for the first time in this old wrecked schoolbus on this funky field I’d found a real home and a real family.
But it wasn’t a real family of course and me and I-Man couldn’t be like Froggy’s parents or even her older brothers because she was such a very young child and I was only a kid myself and an outlaw and I-Man was a Jamaican illegal alien trying to get by and eventually get home without getting busted by the American government. Plus Froggy was somebody’s real daughter and no matter how fucked up that person was we had an obligation to try and return Froggy to her if she wanted to be with her mom, or if not then we had to find her somebody else for a mom. It was obvious that being a female and such a little kid Froggy needed a mom more than she needed me and I-Man, we understood that and accepted it and tried talking to her about it.
I-Man’d say to her, Somewhere out dere, Froggy, in de cold wild hinterlands of America, dere mus’ a mama be cryin fe you t’ come home now, chile, him cryin it time to come home. Him sorry now, Froggy, dat him sold him baby off into Babylon.
I said maybe we could call Froggy’s mom on the phone and kind of feel her out on the subject and then decide what to do and I-Man thought that was okay if Froggy wanted it but she just said, No, talk about something else.
It took weeks but her mom was named Nancy Riley, we finally got that much out of her and Froggy thought she lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin or she used to anyhow before Buster came and got her but that was a long time ago and she probably wasn’t living there anymore anyhow. Froggy didn’t cry or anything when we talked to her about returning to her mom, she’d say a few words and then just look out in space and bite her lower lip and let her eyes go dead. I knew she hadn’t been away all that long, only six months or a year and it only seemed long to her because she was still a little kid so I kept saying let’s go call information and find out if your mom’s listed, that won’t hurt, until finally she seemed to give in and said, O-kay.
It was a warm night early in July, the Fourth of July actually because I remember the fireworks later down by the lake and it was around seven-thirty that we finally got permission from Froggy to try and call up her mom. Basically I think up to then she’d been too afraid that her mom would tell her don’t come home if she called which was a natural fear I guess or that her mom wouldn’t even talk to her at all but she’d been getting some serious attention from me and I-Man for quite a while by then and a lot of description of what moms really feel for their kids regardless of how they act sometimes so she was starting to trust people a little more. It was like a major breakthrough I guess.
But it’d taken a lot of coaxing mainly by me because I don’t think I-Man was all that into talking people into doing what was good for them even little kids like Froggy who’re supposedly too young to know what’s good for them, but finally this one night when she’d said O-kay she would talk to her mom if I got her on the phone the three of us headed on our usual path across the field which had lots of flowers on it now, daisies and goldenrod and suchlike and slipped under the old chain-link fence and walked to the Officemax and around to the front of Sun Foods where there was a pay phone and not many people on account of it being Fourth of July and pretty late. I led and Froggy followed and I-Man was last.
I-Man did have a point although he didn’t make it in words, just by example instead which was typical plus it kept you on your toes and thinking on your own. But getting kids to do stuff for their own good when they don’t want to can be dangerous and only works out for the best once in a while. Actually I don’t know if it ever works out unless you’re standing in the middle of the street and don’t see the ten-ton truck coming and this good guy pushes you out of the way and says it’s for your own good. But even in situations like that if you’d’ve known the facts you’d’ve gotten out of the way on your own and with a lot less stress too and wouldn’t’ve been pissed for being shoved.
Generally it was true that in my own life so far I myself had not done anything just because my mom or stepfather or teachers I have had or any of the adults who had me in their power told me it was for my own good. No fucking way. And whenever somebody told me that, there was like this alarm that went off under the hood and all I could hear was whoop-whoop-whoop, somebody’s trying to steal something valuable, I’d think so I’d usually do the opposite. Most of the time that didn’t turn out so hot either but I’d’ve never done it in the first place if somebody hadn’t’ve been out to get me for my own good to do the first opposite thing.
Yet here I was practically begging Froggy a kid littler than me to call her mom on the phone like E.T. calling home when it was obvious she didn’t want to. Her mom’d sold her to Buster for money probably to buy rock with but still I guess I just couldn’t believe her mom wouldn’t be real happy and incredibly relieved to hear from her lost child no matter what and vice versa too.
I went inside the supermarket and cashed one of Buster’s fifties which got me a good close once-over from the customer service guy after the lady at the cash register refused to break it for me. I think they both thought the bill was a phony which happens a lot here on account of it being so close to the border and all the smuggling et cetera that goes on but I told the guy my father’s outside driving a special handicapped van because he’s a Vietnam vet in a wheelchair and it’s a huge deal for him to come in and do it himself so I was doing it to make a call to his lawyer for him due to his having to go to Washington to testify about Agent Orange. Which finally got to the guy so he broke the bill in a hurry. I don’t know why but I always like to drop that in just to say it, ever since I read about it in the newspaper and thought Agent Orange was like this cool spy who’d worked for the CIA in Vietnam and when he saw how the war was so fucked up he went over to the side of the vets and agreed to testify for them in Washington like in that movie with Tom Cruise. It might’
ve been MTV news I saw it on because I don’t really read the newspapers except by accident like if I sit on a park bench and there it is on the ground staring back at me.
Anyhow I came out with a bunch of quarters and a handful of small bills and called information in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for Nancy Riley. There was a number listed for N. Riley so I dialed that and a woman answered on the first ring like she’d been sitting beside the phone waiting for her daughter to call.
She goes, Hello? and I say, Is this Nancy Riley? and she says yeah and I go, Do you have a little daughter? and she’s all of a sudden wicked suspicious and starts in like who is this and whaddaya want and so on and whaddaya talking about.
My daughter’s with her grandmother, she says. I can tell she’s a pipesucker, you can hear it instantly from the buzz behind her voice like she’s got a lousy speaker.
Froggy’s looking down at her rubber tire sandals all this time and I-Man’s checking out the few customers coming from the store with their grocery carts full of food and he’s offering to push their carts to their car for them, spare-changing in other words but people of course say no real fast, no way they’re going to entrust their precious groceries to this grinning little black dude in floppy shorts and Come Back To Jamaica tee shirt and a red and green and gold mushroom-shaped Rasta cap on his head with all his dreadlocks curled up inside like mystical thoughts of Jah. Although suddenly this one humpbacked old couple says, Yes, thank you very much young man, and off he goes pushing their cart across the lot one happy Rasta, so you never can tell although in my experience with white people when it comes to dealing with kids and blacks it’s the really old and feeble ones who’re more trusting than the healthy middle-aged and younger people, probably due to the elderlies not having very long to live.
Look, Mrs. Riley, I said to her, I’ve got a little girl here, she’s my friend and she says you’re her mom. Or at least her mom is the same name as you.
There’s silence for a few seconds and I can hear her smoking a cig and wished I had one and promised myself to buy some with Buster’s bucks as soon as I got off. Cigarettes’ll make you do that, spend other people’s money. Finally she sighs and says, What’s her name? and suddenly I realize that all I know is Froggy so I panic and put my hand over the phone and say, Froggy, what the fuck’s your real name, man?
She takes a minute like she can’t remember herself, then she looks off toward the parking lot and just says Froggy.
C’mon, man, that’s Buster’s name for you. What’s your real name? What name did your mom give you?
Rose, she said.
Wow, I said. Rose. That’s incredible! I wish I’d’ve known that.
Her name’s Rose, I told her mom.
Where’re you calling from? the lady asks. Is she okay? My daughter’s been visiting with her grandmother, I want you to know. That’s where she stays.
Yeah, fucking duh, man.
Are you with the police or anything? You sound like a kid to me, I think you’re just a goddam kid. Some goddam kid screwing around, fucking with my head. I don’t need this.
I am a kid, lady. My name’s Bone and I’m in Plattsburgh, New York. And your daughter Rose ain’t with her grandmother. She’s standing right here beside me and she’s okay if you want to know. She’s with friends now. You oughta talk to her, man. And if you want and she wants I’ll send her home to you on a bus tomorrow no questions asked.
She laughed at that. You will, huh? I think you’re just some kid who wants to fuck with my head. Is this Jerry? I think I probably know you somewhere and you’ve got a weird sense of humor is all. This is Jerry, right? Jerry from over by Madison.
I was starting to hate this bitch. Does the name Buster Brown mean anything to you, man?
That did it. She said, Okay, lemme talk to her, and I handed the phone to Froggy. Rose.
She took the phone and said, Hi, Mom. She didn’t cry or anything. She almost didn’t show any feelings at all, just went on saying like yeah and no and so on while I guess her mom told her various stuff. I really wanted to know what but from the way Rose was acting I couldn’t tell anything. It might’ve been, I’m sorry, please come home, I love you, my child. Or just as easy, Don’t ever call me again, you sonofabitch, you’re nobody’s child. Either way Rose looked and sounded the same.
I-Man circled back and checked in before some more spare-changing and I told him what had happened so far and he just nodded like it didn’t make no nevermind to him which was an expression he liked to use and took off looking for more old people with grocery carts because it looked like he was doing okay. It always surprised me how if people gave I-Man a chance to talk they liked him even though they couldn’t understand him. He was one charming African dude.
Finally Rose passed me the phone and just said, She wants to talk to you.
I held my hand over the mouthpiece and said to her, Everything okay now, Rose? You want to go back there? and she shrugged her shoulders like whatever which was definitely not a good sign. I was starting to feel sorry I’d ever broken Buster’s fifty and gotten her into this. You don’t hafta go back if you don’t want to, I said. But you’ve got to go with somebody. A regular person, I mean. For school and all.
She said, Yeah, I know. It’s okay.
I said to her mom, Wussup.
Listen, I don’t know you from Adam but I guess you’re okay. Is Rosie living with you or your family or something? What’s the deal?
The deal is I’m only a homeless boy you might say and she’s sort of crashing with me and a friend here and we’re like outlaws. She’s too young for that. She’s only a little girl, for chrissake. So I need to find her a real home. And you looked the logical place to start.
Nothing. Just the buzz of her bad speaker.
It’s simple, Mrs. Riley. You’re her mom. And thanks to this guy Buster Brown I happen to have enough money to buy her a ticket to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. If you want me to. She’s willing. What about you?
Still nothing. What an incredible bitch, I’m thinking.
What the hell, Rose’s only a little girl and you’re her mom. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?
Yeah, she finally said. Then another long silence.
So what about it, Mrs. Riley? Rose told me about her dad being in jail and all. What’s the deal with you?
Yeah, she said. That all sounds great. But c’mon, how’m I gonna pay for her when she gets here though? I’m outa work. I’m sick. You understand what I’m saying? It’s a problem. I’m broke. And I’m sick. Various things.
There was a heavy dragged-out sigh like she was waiting for me to say something sympathetic but I didn’t want to so finally she goes, All right, whyn’t you do that, then. Buy her a ticket home to her mother. It’s a good thing to do, right? I need her and she needs me, a kid needs her mother. I mean, I can tell you like her and she likes you, you’re friends, I guess, which is real sweet and all. But I’m her mother. Also, listen, if you want you can put some money in an envelope with her, like when you put her on the bus. In a little pocketbook or something safe. You know? For Rosie. You can probably do that for her. So I can take care of her when she gets here. Like buy her some decent new clothes and so on. Maybe find a better place to live. So she can have her own room. You know what I’m saying? God, I love her. I truly do.
Yeah, okay, I said and then I asked her if she wanted to say anything else to Rose but she said no, that’s fine. Just put her on the Trailways tomorrow morning, she told me and write down the phone number and give it to Rosie so she could call when she got into the Milwaukee station and she’d come down and get her. It wasn’t far, she said. And don’t forget the extra money. So I can buy her some clothes and maybe find a new apartment for her. And it’s summer and we could really use an air conditioner, she said.
Yeah, I bet. I hung up then. I was feeling a little sick about the whole thing but it was too late and besides I didn’t have any better ideas and neither did I-Man, although I knew that wouldn’t bother hi
m because except for things like his veggie patch and other day-to-day activities I-Man wasn’t really into ideas and plans and suchlike. Mostly he just took things as they came and made all his adjustments on the spot. He was like the opposite of my friend Russ and most people in America who flip out if they don’t have a plan for the rest of their lives and I have to admit there was a little of that in me too.
It was pretty dark by then and we started hearing some rumbles and crackles in the distance and I-Man jacked a look in the direction of downtown Plattsburgh and the lakeside park and with his eyebrows pulled down and his lips pursed he said to me, Sound like de army-dem comin fe kotched I-and-I.
I said no it was just the fireworks but he was definitely scared, I could tell and it surprised me because it was the first time I’d ever seen I-Man even a little bit scared.
It’s only the Fourth of July, man, I explained. Birth of the nation and all that. We do it every year, just blast the shit out of the sky with tons and tons of fireworks to remind us of all the wars won by America and all the people who got killed doing it. It’s like a fucking war dance, man. We’re celebrating our hard-won freedom to like kill people.
Come wi’ I, he said and grabbed Rose by the hand and waved for me to follow and led us back around behind the Sun Foods store to where the dumpsters and loading docks all were, our personal one-stop food-shopping spot. There was this steel ladder back in a corner attached to the cinderblock wall and I-Man helped Rose up onto it saying, Gwan, chile, up to de top now. Gwan, don’ be ’fraid, chile. Jah protect de pick’nies-dem.